Hi folks,

Endless Space 2 Supremacy is coming to Steam this week, on August 2nd! We're very happy to be bringing another expansion to Endless Space 2, and we hope you'll like it, too! In case you're curious about what's coming up, we'll be publishing the game design documents over the next few days. Here's a closer look at the new major feature of the Supremacy expansion and everybody's favorite new toys, the Behemoths...


Common Gameplay 

A Behemoth is a ship which is larger than a Carrier. The Behemoth's ultimate purpose is to evolve and become specialized. For the most part of the game however, it will have a multi-purpose role determined by its equipped modules and can be used economically or militarily.


Behemoths 

• Behemoths will start with x1 multipliers on their modules. Unlocking new hull types will increase this multiplier up to x8
• Behemoths will start with a base of HP, and unlocking new hull types will increase this value
• A player will be able to field a limited number of Behemoths at a given time. This limit can be increased by researching more Behemoth-specific technologies (or building a specific improvement)

• A Behemoth is the only ship in its fleet. It has a specific size, role, and takes 10CP
• Behemoth content is unlocked in the tech tree as Behemoth specific technologies. Behemoth techs are visually distinct from regular ones
• A Behemoth's possible actions on the galaxy map are determined by its equipped modules

The actions are detailed below.

Support 
Mining

• The Behemoth will be able to place mining probes on uncolonized planets. The strategic and luxury resources for which the player has the technology will be mined
• Mining probes have a set duration

Government support

• Placing the Behemoth in orbit of an owned or allied system will provide FIDS bonuses to the system

Science 
Research

• Research: placing the Behemoth over a special node will provide research points and possibly other research discounts linked to Special node type
• Analyzer: placing the Behemoth over a special node will intensify the effect of the Special node for the system which has influence over it and/or generate strategic resources

Planet Improvement

All these modules require the player to have the corresponding anomaly/terraformation technologies unlocked.

• Anomaly Reduction: allows the Behemoth to reduce anomalies on neutral planets
• Terraformation: allows the Behemoth to terraform neutral planets
• Rejuvenation: allows the Behemoth to refill depleted planets and to reassemble destroyed planets

Military 

• Provides more military slots to the Behemoth
• Unlocks the tractor beam to be used in Behemoths or Carriers: prevents the enemy retreating from space battles

Specialization 

Once the corresponding Behemoth-tech has been researched, it can become specialized in the one that was unlocked. Specialization is permanent and changes the hull of the Behemoth. A specialized Behemoth can be embedded in a fleet alongside other ships.


Battleship

Largest and strongest military ship in the game:

• x8 Multiplier
• 10 CP
• Can unlock a special "Ion Wave" ability: destroys all fleets on node (including owned fleet) but leaves the Battleship deactivated for X turns (can't move on the map nor attack in space battle)

Obliterator

The Obliterator is a System destroyer which has a quite weak hull with a very limited amount of slots:

• Can fire a missile for free once every 20 turns
  • The action can be sped up by paying a Quadrinix and Orichalcix cost which decreases as the timer decreases

• The missile travels on the map and needs X turns to reach its destination:

• On impact, the missile will destroy the entire system:
  • All planets are destroyed
  • The sun type might change
  • All player owned assets are destroyed
  • Players can build a shield to keep their assets and suffer only 50% of damages on them
    • Citadels provide a native Obliterator shield (you can reach 100% protection on a Citadel, see below for more details)
• Systems with a sun type "None" can't be targeted by the Obliterator

Citadel

The Behemoth embeds itself onto a system and transforms it into a Citadel (so you don't have a ship anymore :)):

• Provides strong defensive bonuses to the system (more manpower, stronger local troops)
• Provides a native Obliterator shield
• Prevents free move for enemies on this node
• Provides a native guard on the system (no need to have fleets in orbit)
• Unlock specific Citadel star system improvements that can only be built on Citadels:
  • Planetary Batteries, which will fire during space battles (but won't take part otherwise)
  • Other improvements will focus on defense or industry/science

This should shake up the end game quite a bit, especially considering that we've started working on victory conditions to make them a little harder to reach (more on that in the patch notes tomorrow!)


What's the Behemoth look you like the most?

Hi guys,

Endless Space 2 Supremacy is coming to Steam this week, on August 2nd! We're very happy to be bringing another expansion to Endless Space 2, and we hope you'll like it, too! In case you're curious about what's coming up, we'll be publishing the game design documents over the next few days. Here's a closer look at the new faction of the Supremacy expansion, the Hissho...



Faction: Hissho

Species: Hissho

Government: The Honorable Hissho Doksai

History:
Tempered by steel and battle, the Hissho evolved from avian ancestors on their Home Planet of Uchi. Focused on the constant wars between their own tribes, they lived ignorant of the different species roaming the galaxy until they were picked up by the Endless, augmented and then quickly put to the test as gladiators fighting in the decadent arenas of their new masters. How long this period of mindless slaughter for the pleasure of their overlords lasted, none of them could say, and of this bygone age only memories of slavery and exploitation remain, along with those of glory and adulation.  



Society:

Under the rule of the Tokso, their military and spiritual leader, both an accomplished warrior and a symbol of divine authority, the Hissho have long lived divided into clans and regions following feudal lines. However, modernity slowly eroded this very strict organization and changed the makeup of society. Oaths of loyalty are now made to “School” and the way of life prescribed inside the walls of their integrated cities.

Of those, two are worth particular attention: The Way of the Red Blade, whose focus on physical training and warmongering attitude seduced those who would see the Hissho reign supreme on the galaxy; and the Order of the Obsidian Eagle with its daily observation of religious sacrifices and hermetic discipline, earning the respect, and even the fear, of those who come into contact with it.



Gameplay:
The Hissho are a military-oriented faction whose main gameplay feature is Keii (which translates to respect or deference). This new resource that can only be replenished through combat is used to power special abilities applied on Hissho fleets. It also drives their empire Obedience which replaces happiness and supersedes the Obedience of their star systems. Crushingly strong on the offensive, the Hissho will only fall if you cannot sustain your war economy and let your Keii wither away.

Heroes:
As a faction well versed in the art of combat, it’s no surprise that the Hissho would mostly house heroes focused on warfare and space battle. They are therefore best suited for admiral positions thanks to strong damage and fleet upkeep bonuses but if push comes to shove, they make decent governors… as long as your goal is to make your system a manpower and spaceship factory.

Ships:
Powerful and versatile, Hissho fleets can easily switch between straightforward and devious loadouts thanks to numerous polyvalent slot modules capable of hosting both support and defense or attack modules.



Faction Card:

Population Traits: 

• +1 Industry on planet
• +2 Manpower on planet

Assimilation Traits:

• +1 Industry on planet
• +1 Manpower on planet

Population Collection Bonus: 

• +1 Military Point per Hissho
• +10% Manpower production on System with Hissho
• - 50% ship cost production

Starting party:

• Main: Militarist
• Secondary: Religious

PsychoTraits: 

• Militarist (War++)
• Fanatics (Religion to war)
• Anti-pacifist (pacifist--)

Faction Traits: Keii-do

Resources: Keii

Keii is a new resource the Hissho can use to launch special abilities and that drives their empire "Obedience" (more about that lower in this post). More specifically, it is lost by: 

• Using special laws
• Turning outpost into colonies
• Building specific star system improvements
• Retreating
• Losing or giving up a ground battle

And it is earned by:

• Fighting a space battle
  • The amount of Keii won depends on the respective power levels and sizes of the fleets involved.
• Fighting and winning ground battles
• Completing quest and deeds

Along those methods, there is also a way to boost the Keii you will obtain: through your Behemoth ’”Keii zone”.  As long as a fleet fights under this specific circular region generated by Hissho Behemoths, you will passively get a 20% boost to all Keii gains after a battle.



Keii uses: Glorious actions

Glorious actions are special abilities that the player can use on a fleet, star system or a Behemoth to impact them. 

• They are unlocked when the player has reached a certain threshold of Keii and cost Dust and/or strategic resources to be used
• Their effect last for a fixed number of turns
• Only one of each Glorious action can be active at a time

There are 4 different Glorious actions whose effect depend on their target.

On a fleet/system:

• Order of the Red Blade:
  • Target type: fleet
  • Gives the “Emperor’s Guard” bonus to ships belonging to the fleet ( +20% damage, +20% Hull absorption, +20% shield absorption)
• War Banner:
  • Target type: fleet
  • +2 movement points on ships, +2 vision range on ships, +50% health shown to enemies on Fleet, + 50% military power shown to enemies on fleet
• Way of the Obsidian Eagle:
  • Target type: Owned Colonized Star System
  • Colonized star system will benefit from +25% Industry
• Homeland defense:
  • Target type: Owned Colonized Star System
  • Unlock a special Tactic granting bonus DMG done to Attacker in Ground battle (system specific) and + 20% manpower generated per turn on system

Character limit reached

Please click here to read the full article!

Hey everyone,

We're very happy to finally be revealing what we've been cooking up! A week from now on August 2nd, we'll be releasing Endless Legend Inferno & Endless Space 2 Supremacy.

Rather than make one humongous blog post to introduce both, we're splitting them up. Click on each picture to be taken to the description of the corresponding expansion! You can already pre-order any one expansion now to get a 10% discount, or better yet: order both as a bundle and get 20% off! 


ENDLESS LEGEND IS BACK, BABY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MfKfrDVDME

Click here to learn more about Endless Legend Inferno


ENDLESS SPACE 2 ISN'T BATTLE ROYALE BUT WE SURE LIKE OUR CHICKENS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qe05XP5VFY


Click here to learn more about Endless Space 2 Supremacy


WHERE AND WHEN CAN I GET THEM?

Both expansions will be released on August 2nd.

They are available for pre-order now on Steam at the following links and price points:

• Endless Legend Inferno with the discount is available HERE for pre-order for 11.69 € /$ 11.69 / £ 9.89 (-10%)
• Endless Space 2 Supremacy with the discount is available HERE for pre-order for 11.69 € /$ 11.69 / £ 9.89 (-10%)
• A bundle of both Endless Space 2 Supremacy & Endless Legend Inferno (HERE) is available for pre-order for 20.78 € /$ 20.78 / £ 17.58

Hello there,

The Galaxy Cup will be held starting today until July 15th.

16 Endless Space factions will compete for the ultimate prize: Internet Glory!
Come vote for your favorite faction throughout the month on our Twitter or Facebook.

First round starts at 7PM CET!

Have any prognostics?

Dawn of War III is 75% off for a limited time during Skulls for the Skull Throne 2 ! We wanted to celebrate this festival of all things Warhammer gaming by releasing a brand new Elite unit skin, the Obsidian Knight Paladin skin, free for all users!

The Obsidian Knight is something of a legend in the 40K universe, with the first sighting during the Damocles Gulf Crusade. Fighting alongside the Imperial armies against the Tau Empire, the Obsidian Knight was spotted in a number of massive battles, racking up an astounding number of kills. The Knight’s appearance was cheered by Imperial soldiers until the closing of the campaign, when it vanished into legend, only to appear again centuries later…

It will be unlocked automatically the next time you log in.

Hey everyone,

The Spring Update is now live in game!

We want to say thank you to the community for taking such an interest in the patch. Community discussion has helped inform many of the changes to this iteration.

Another big thanks goes out to the community balance team, and to a group of experts who provided valuable suggestions to the balance team.

Additionally, a hotfix for some bugs has just been deployed.

Full changelog available here: https://community.companyofheroes.com/discussion/67/coh-2-changelog#latest

Enjoy playing,

Relic

Hello there!

We're one step closer to knowing who our espionage faction is! Last week, you upvoted the names you liked best so we could pick our favorite three. We have to say, there's a lot of heated debate going on still about which ones we like best, so while we're taking our time to pick a selection that does the faction justice, we're moving on to the next step, Ship Design!

Vote here!

Hey everyone,

We're very happy to finally release the Unfallen comic, which has been co-authored by YOU, our community! As a special treat, and to make them more readily accessible to our players everywhere, we are putting all our Endless Space 2 Stories comics up on Steam. The comics will automatically download to your installation folder, in a subfolder called "Stories". Note that the Unfallen comic will also be made available on the Wiki at a later date.

While we're on the subject of Endless Space 2 Stories, we've put together a special treat to show you how we create comics, and give you a chance to meet some of the Amplitude people who have been behind the scenes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIsUCTtTCnk


INTRODUCING BRANCHING PATHS, OUR COMMUNITY CO-AUTHORED UNFALLEN COMIC!



Given that the Unfallen comic came about via a creative collaboration between the community and the studio, making this one was a little bit different to the normal process ...
Prior to beginning the comic, we'd already decided that we'd approach the Unfallen from an outsider's perspective, and with the community's help we came up with our main character, Karv Jezet--an experienced, cynical Haroshem adventurer with perfect memory.

By the way, we chose to tell the story from a non-Unfallen POV because we thought it would be very difficult to do justice to the culture and psychology of a sentient species of trees in an 8-page comic format! Often, alien races in science-fiction are nothing more than humans in fancy-dress, and we didn't want to reduce such an interesting species like the Unfallen into such a role. By letting the audience see the Unfallen through Karv's eyes, we could still explore some of their most striking aspects, while keeping their inherent "alienness".

Of course, lone adventurers rarely make interesting protagonists, so we quickly came up with the idea of Karv having a partner. And who better than teaming Karv up with everyone's favourite photobomber, Ryhnc Raggiodri? But where we would they start their adventures? How about a seemingly virgin world, where Unfallen tendrils were about to make planetfall in a matter of days ...

Since the community would have a vote on the protagonists' choices every couple of pages, and we wanted them to have a genuine input into the direction of the story, we didn't think too much about what would unfold on the page. We knew the world had certain, unique features, but we had no idea how things would pan out.

Give it a read, and tell us what you think!

-StoryEngine






We hope you enjoy this story! If you have any questions or comments, you can shoot them in this thread at Arkel, who leads the project. And if you want to learn more about our comics, you can rewatch our comics livestream on Youtube!

Hi everyone,

We're hosting our very first BEER2GETHER in the UK and we want you to be there! For those of you unfamiliar with BEER2GETHER, it's an event we organize where players and devs can hang out and talk games around their beverages of choice. 

It's a long-standing Amplitude tradition that's always taken place at our home base in Paris, but this year we've decided to branch out & switch our baguettes & cheese for fish & chips! (For our French friends, not to worry, les B2Gs Parisiens will continue as always). 

Our senior writer StoryEngine and two of our game designers, Jhell & Kynrael, will be shuttling under the channel on Saturday, April 14th to check out EGX Rezzed. The plan is to meet up at a nearby bar after the event wraps up. Food & drinks will be provided! space is limited and available on a first come, first served basis.

• Date: Saturday, April 14th 2018
• Time: 18:30 - 23:00 GMT 
• Address: Near EGX Rezzed (exact address will be in confirmation email)

If you'd like to sign-up to attend, please fill out the following form. You will receive a confirmation email letting you know if your reservation has been accepted. 

Looking forward to seeing everyone IRL!

Hi everyone,

We're hosting our very first BEER2GETHER in the UK and we want you to be there! For those of you unfamiliar with BEER2GETHER, it's an event we organize where players and devs can hang out and talk games around their beverages of choice. 

It's a long-standing Amplitude tradition that's always taken place at our home base in Paris, but this year we've decided to branch out & switch our baguettes & cheese for fish & chips! (For our French friends, not to worry, les B2Gs Parisiens will continue as always). 

Our senior writer StoryEngine and two of our game designers, Jhell & Kynrael, will be shuttling under the channel on Saturday, April 14th to check out EGX Rezzed. The plan is to meet up at a nearby bar after the event wraps up. Food & drinks will be provided! space is limited and available on a first come, first served basis.

• Date: Saturday, April 14th 2018
• Time: 18:30 - 23:00 GMT 
• Address: Near EGX Rezzed (exact address will be in confirmation email)

If you'd like to sign-up to attend, please fill out the following form. You will receive a confirmation email letting you know if your reservation has been accepted. 

Looking forward to seeing everyone IRL!